Blue Jays fall to ninth place Orioles despite another good start from Manoah

TORONTO — The regularity with which Alek Manoah delivers quality starts makes it almost too easy to take what he does for granted. Really, it’s not that easy, especially for a sophomore pitcher who’s cranking up a career-best innings haul every five days, but there’s the Toronto Blue Jays right-hander, who never misses a turn, fights his ass and his team carries on the way.

The key to his remarkable season is that even on the rare occasions when he’s not pushing, he still finds a way to be really good, like he was when he went six brave innings of one-run Ball grinded Sunday’s 5-4 loss of the Toronto Blue Jays to the Baltimore Orioles.

Only a rare blip from Jordan Romano – allowing the first four batters, the last being an Adleyrutschman two-run single and a Jesus Aguilar RBI base hit in his fifth missed save of the season – prevented Manoah’s effort to get one secure threesome. Sweep game.

A comeback attempt at the bottom of ninth place remained close for the Blue Jays (83-64) when George Springer missed a game-determining homer by inches and settled for a run-scoring double that made it a one-run game made. After a walk by Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Felix Bautista prompted a sharp groundout from Bo Bichette to end it.

The loss was only their fifth this month, a surge that will ensure they go ahead of the Seattle Mariners (80-64), who were with the Los Angeles Angels, for top wildcard spot and sixth next week Plays well ahead of fourth-placed Orioles (76-69).

Still, it was a disappointing end to a grueling 5-3 home run that included a day-night doubleheader against the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday. The Blue Jays looked ready after Guerrero Jr. took a 3-1 lead with a solo shot in game seven in front of a crowd of 41,301 at Rogers Center.

But the toll of a busy stretch was perhaps starting to show when Adam Cimber allowed a solo shot from Aguilar in eighth before Romano, without his usual command and plus slider, was burned for a three-pointer. Without a fifth starter, the Blue Jays have racked up three bullpen days over the past two weeks, which undoubtedly helped.

Manoah only allowed four hits but also went up four times in the season, requiring him to repeatedly dodge traffic to avoid significant damage.

A strong defense, led by Teoscar Hernandez’s leaping catch against the wall in right field to rob Anthony Santander in the first moment, certainly helped. But he also bailed out at two crucial points: by inducing a Santander pop-up and knocking out Gunnar Henderson in the second with two ons and an out, and Robinson slammed Chirinos and made Cedric Mullins, after Jorge Mateo’s RBI -Double fly out left runners in second place and third in fourth.

Those moments lay dormant against a Blue Jays rally in the third that was wiped out after Bichette’s RBI single – as Matt Chapman got into the 10^th Triple play in franchise history — and Danny Jansen’s solo shot in the fourth that restored a 2-1 advantage.

Manoah’s performance has been a constant throughout a season of wild swings for the Blue Jays, with Sunday’s game marking his 23rd game^approx Quality start to the year. While it’s by no means a perfect stat, the fact that 23 of his 29 games have met that benchmark shows the 24-year-old’s consistency.

Consider that in all of those starts, he hasn’t allowed more than four earned runs, and that’s only happened four times. And only six times has he played under six innings and never thrown under five frames.

It’s his reliability that has helped underpin the success of those outings as the Blue Jays completed three bullpen games in recent weeks to fill the vacant fifth spot in the rotation.

Manoah was without Alejandro Kirk, who managed the bases on Saturday but had another day to recover from his hip constriction. He threw to Jansen for the first time this season.